Harry's Hogwarts Letter
by Lrhcoolio
Summary: I have often wondered what Professor McGonagall was thinking when she nearly drowned Harry in thousands of Hogwarts letters. This is my theory.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Very Special thanks to my beta, Doctor Lennon 007. Honestly, at this point I should be calling her my co-author.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I do, however, own some very nice purple knee socks with sloths on them. They are very cute, and they are mine. You can not have them.**

**To be honest, I think these disclaimers are silly and superfluous, but I really wanted to tell you about my knee socks.**

1\. _In which Minerva Becomes Fed Up and HEREC is Formed_.

Every few years, Hogwarts has to deal with a . . . troublesome child. More specifically, the extremely understaffed Admissions Office (more commonly known as Professor Minerva McGonagall) has to deal with a trouble child.

These are the children who have trouble getting their acceptance letter. Occasionally, _very_ occasionally, the Enrollment Quill will miss a name. The Enrollment Quill is a giant, pure black feather that is rumored to have originally come from an augurey. Whether it actually came from an augurey or not is unknown; however, in the years since it was plucked, it has been subjected to some massive, incredibly complex enchantments, which allow it to detect when a magical child is born and automatically enroll said child at Hogwarts. The child has absolutely no say in the matter.

However, more often it is the fault of the owl delivering the letter, not the quill. Even more often than that, it is the fault of the sole staff member in charge of the letters (this being the Deputy Headmistress herself). After all, one person, however exceptionally capable she may be, is likely to have a bit of difficulty ensuring that all fifty letters make it to out to all prospective students.

The letters must have the student's name and address, often down to the room they are sleeping in, as well as a brief introduction to the wizarding world if the student is a muggleborn, and the list of items the student must buy for his or her first year. With an annual change in DADA teacher, the list is not even the same each year and must be tailored accordingly. As if this weren't enough, different years received entirely different lists. In addition, some of the students would likely decline attending Hogwarts, and then proper steps would need to be taken to assure they were being tutored at home accordingly.

All of this must happen on top of Deputy Headmistress McGonagall's other duties: arranging the student's schedules, teaching confused thirteen-year-olds about puberty, grading papers, setting up childishly weak security measures around artifacts of immeasurable power, arranging the seventh years' apparition lessons and, among many, many other things, keeping Professor Trelawney as far away from the sherry as possible.

Keeping all of this in mind, Professor Minerva McGonagall was fairly certain this particular troublesome student was not her fault. At the time of his birth Minerva had made a point of watching the Enrollment Quill and had seen his name go down on the register. After all, he came from a very old Light family, and it was important he end up at Hogwarts. His importance only increased at the age of one and a half, and Albus seemed all the more determined to have the boy close under his wing. Minerva also had a bit of a soft spot for his parents (may they rest in peace) and thought it would be nice to get the boy to Hogwarts, even if only to remove him from his awful relatives.

Therefore, when Minerva sent out his letter and did not received a reply within two days, it was with a bit of added vigor that she rewrote the exact same letter to the exact same address and sent it with the exact same owl.

Like the last time, the bird returned without a reply.

Over the next two days, Minerva's concern and irritation deepened. She began to lose sleep over the matter, eating less and growing simultaneously listless and frantic. Minerva could not fathom why the young Potter refused to answer his mail; all of the instructions were present within the letter, and if he did not want to attend Hogwarts (another thing she could not fathom), then he should have sent a letter communicating that. While Potter's father's manners had always been of debatable quality, surely his mother would have attempted to instill some kind of courtesy?

It was at this point that the vastly overworked, slightly malnourished, incredibly frazzled professor decided to wash her hands of the issue. Thirty-seven years of teaching teenagers, her other administrative duties and four days of obsessing over a child's letter had taken their toll, and she was not going to play along with the whims of a petulant eleven-year-old who refused to answer his letters.

"Tinkywinky!" Minerva cried out in a rather irritated tone.

With a loud crack, a small, wrinkled house elf appeared in the middle of the room draped in a royal purple towel, simultaneously resembling a sari and a toga, stamped with the Hogwarts crest. The elf bowed low, his bulbous nose dipping perilously close to the carpet.

In a surprisingly childish, high-pitched voice, he asked "What does the Professor McGonagall require of Tinkywinky, sir?"

"Tinkywinky, I have had a particularly long and trying past four days which directly followed a rather long and trying summer. Albus and the rest of the staff - excluding Severus, Argus and Binns - have all been going crazy over Harry Potter's arrival at Hogwarts, which unfortunately coincides with the moving of the Philosopher's Stone. I am exhausted, and to make matters worse, Potter seems to take after his father in gleaning utter enjoyment from irritating authority figures! Twice now I have sent him his acceptance letter, and twice he has completely ignored me. As if I don't have enough to do already, he also expects to keep me waiting on tenterhooks to find out if the most important child of the century deigns to attend Hogwarts.

"Well, I have important things to do and waiting on the whims of an eleven-year-old is not one of them. As of now, I delegate all responsibility for Harry Potter's acceptance letter and attendance of Hogwarts to you Tinkywinky! It is your job to make sure that he gets here by the proper date. If you need to, you may call on the other elves to help you out. You can form the House Elf Reply Enforcement Committee for all I care, just get it done!"

And thus, HEREC was born.


	2. Chapter 2

2\. _In which Denizens of the Deep are Addressed and Work is Delegated Tomorrow_

Far underground, in a dank, pitch-black room, a match flared. The light, barely bright enough to illuminate the features of its creator, flickered and swayed in a small draft. The light was lowered by a black, humanoid outline, and briefly seemed to disappear, before lighting a lantern in the center of an intricate pentagram drawn on the cold flagstones. The lantern light, while faint, illuminated more of the room than the match had; it reflected dully off stone walls, but glittered sharply on five pairs of large, black eyes.

"In the name of the bloodwinds and the denizens of old, under the twilit sky and the master's watchful eye, we gather. In the bowels of this ancient keep, home to the grimdark and the doombuilt, home to the-"

"Tinkywinky," Floopsy rudely interrupted, "Tonight is my shift for cleaning the Hufflepuff common room, and I need to be there in eight minutes. I'm happy to help you out with whatever you're doing, but if you're just going to spout Lovecraft at me then I'd rather come back at a slightly more convenient time."

"Fine," Tinkywinky replied mulishly. "Then I hereby call the first meeting of HEREC to order. First, attendance. Floopsy?"

"Here."

"Moopsy?"

"Here."

"Spoopsy?"

"Here."

"Cottontail?

"Present!"

Everyone glared at Cottontail for a moment, before Tinkywinky began to speak again. "Our first job is to obtain the affirmative reply of one Harry Potter, in regards to his Hogwarts acceptance letter. I have received intelligence that Professor McGonagall has already sent two letters to Harry Potter, and neither have received a reply. I will now open the floor to suggestions as to how to deliver the acceptance letter to Harry (who will now be known as Target H)."

Silence reigned for approximately four seconds before chaos staged a rebellion with Floopsy, Moopsy and Spoopsy all talking at once. After Tinkywinky had banged his gavel several times, blown a deafening whistle, stomped his feet and eventually just tackled the other four elves, silence wearily climbed back onto its throne, replaced its now dented crown and ruled once again.

Cottontail tentatively raised her hand and murmured, "I have an idea. What if we just had one of the teachers, sir, go to Target H's house and hand deliver the letter?"

Everyone glared at Cottontail for a moment, before Moopsy suddenly shrieked, "OH! Wait, what if we just, um, send, a bunch of letters? 'Cause um, if we send him, two or three letters at a time, and, um, if one of them misses his house, it'll all be okay because, um, two others will get there anyway?"

The four other house elves thought about the plan for a moment, and then three of them began to cheer at the sheer brilliance. Everyone glared at the silent Cottontail for a second before Cottontail started to half-heartedly join in the cheering as well.

Tinkywinky looked around the group proudly and said, "So it's a plan, then? Brilliant! Let's all meet here at the same time tomorrow, and then we'll delegate responsibilities and things. And may the fallen seraphim of yore-"

"Oh, shut up Tinkywinky, you melodramatic git."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: So this chapter is about twice as long as the previous, and a hundred words longer than the first. This will not become a habit.**

3\. _In which Four Things Happen but Only One of Them is Actually Mentioned, and Fate gets Really Busy_

In three parts of the castle and one part of Surrey, Things were Happening. Certainly, things were happening in all parts of Hogwarts, but only four Things actually took place, and of those four, only one could be deemed Truly Important.

In the Come and Go Room, a small elf (known by her peers as Floopsy) sat nursing her hand, gently rocking back and forth. After all, writing fourteen letters in a row was taxing enough without having to forge the Professor McGonagall, sir's, handwriting and signature on each of them as well.

Floopsy was not required to make fourteen copies of the letter, but she was well known among her peers for being very practical. She'd always thought that it's better to have extra copies when you didn't need them than to have not enough copies when you did. She abided by this policy, even if that meant getting a cramp in her hand.

While most would not deign to even give sitting alone in a room the capital letter of a Thing, let alone the description of Truly Important, most would be right. What made this Thing Truly Important, was not the action or place, but rather the lack of action at a different place.

Because Floopsy sat cradling her hand in the Come and Go Room, she was not in the kitchen fighting to retrieve the cooking sherry from the Professor Trelawney, sir. Because Floopsy did not fight for the sherry, the Professor Trelawney, sir, was able to make her way up to the otherwise uninhabited Headmaster, sir's, office. Because Trelawney was drunk and alone in his office, and because fate has a way of doing things, the Professor Trelawney, sir, managed to trip and break one of the instruments in the Headmaster, sir's, office.

Because of how fate works, the Professor Trelawney, sir, managed to break the one instrument solely responsible for monitoring foreign activity at No. 4 Privet Drive. Any magical presence unregistered with the headmaster would send a little twirly bit on the device going in circles. The instrument would then connect to the house's wards, and take a sample of the foreign magic, searching the sample for intent. If the person's magic seemed to harbor malevolence, the central glass bowl of goo would start spinning and emitting puffs of sulfurous gas, while shrieking a high a-flat. If the magic sample seemed _benevolent, _the instrument would merely record the occurrence on a post-it note. Unfortunately, the whole thing was now broken and could do none of those things.

Trelawney paused for a moment and stared at the shards of glass on the lurid green carpet. Then she shrugged, swiped Dumbledore's entire lemon drop stash and left the room.

As she returned back the way she came, she learned two things. One, lemon drops do not mix well with sherry, and two, Severus Snape turns the oddest shade of puce when you throw up on his shoes.

Severus stared down at her with his usual look of disdain. Trelawney looked back with her usual air of nearsighted befuddlement. Or would have if she could find her glasses.

"May I help you?" Snape inquired. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he "sarcasmed." Had the words been visible to the naked eye, they would surely have been dripping with sarcasm. They would be lying sodden on the floor in the midst of a small pond of sarcasm.

"Oh, yes. Thank you dearie, much appreciated. When I was in Albus's office earlier I Saw myself interacting with a kind young gentleman. I hadn't expected it to be you of course, but drunkards must not be choosers."

Severus nearly failed to hide his incredulity at her straight face. He also nearly failed to hide his double take.

"When were you in Albus's office?" he inquired slowly as he cleaned off his shoes.

"Just now, of course. Between you and me, some of his decorations are rather odd. I can understand the crystal balls and such, and even the furniture is alright if you like that sort of thing, but the shards of glass and wood on the floor were just begging for someone to step on them. Why, had I not Seen them before stepping into the room, I - Severus? Where did you go?"

Severus had disappeared. Actually, he had walked down the hall behind her, but it amounted to the same thing.

Whilst fleeing the seer and her puddle of vomit, Severus was deep in thought. He was fully aware that Albus had left Hogwarts for the evening to relax with his fellow Wizengamot members at the pub. While normally Albus's two or three hour disappearances were not much of an issue, if it meant that the divination professor was able to get in to his office alone, perhaps they should be investigating additional means of security.

On entering the office, Severus immediately noticed the mess on the floor. Shards of glass, some covered in odd multicolored goop, others gently smoking, lay on the carpet in the middle of a broken wooden framework that seemed to defy physics in its construction. Where the goop had touched the floor, it appeared to have eaten through the carpet and was slowly working its way through the flagstones.

With a wave of his wand, Severus vanished the mess. After repairing the carpet, he slowly inspected the room. It was then that he located the small scattering of lemon drops on Albus's desk.

A shiver went down Severus's spine as he remembered what happened the last time someone had touched the headmaster's candy stash. It had been breakfast on the seventh day of the third month of the Marauder's first year at Hogwarts, and they were showing off their stolen loot at the Gryffindor table. The Headmaster had seen them, and slowly walked over.

His face was carved in some terrible, dark caricature of his normal grandfatherly expression . The typical kindly wrinkles became sharp, and dark and forbidding. The twinkle in his eye, rather than putting one in mind of lucky stars or, shiny christmas baubles, instead seemed to remind people of how one errant spark during hay season could set the whole barn on fire. Albus's whole posture screamed menace, and the entire hall stared in morbid fascination. If Tinkywinky were there, he might possibly have described the the Headmaster as irretrievably grimdark.

Albus had taken the Marauders out into the corridor, and though the Headmaster had returned several minutes later, smiling and unperturbed, the Marauders were not seen for the rest of the day.

With a small shake of his shoulders, Severus pulled himself back to reality. He decided that no, he would not be the one to mention the theft to the Headmaster as he would much prefer to keep his sanity intact. He cleaned up the spilled lemon drops, and hurriedly left the room.

As fate would have it, Albus didn't notice anything was amiss until late the next week.


End file.
